


feed on your fear.

by argylemikewheeler



Series: Tumblr Re-posts [54]
Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Character Study, Flashbacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 05:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18403628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argylemikewheeler/pseuds/argylemikewheeler
Summary: I couldn’t stop thinking about Richie’s bat outburst in the sewers-- and I thought about Richie, a year later, not over it and not really able to get over it.





	feed on your fear.

Richie hasn’t picked up a baseball bat in months. At first, it was just too cold outside to even consider playing any sport, and it was a great excuse. He didn’t want to feel the tense ache in his shoulder from last summer, from swinging a bat way too fast at something way too hard-- and inhuman.

But then it got warmer, and inched toward the anniversary of when Georgie got hurt, and when they all thought their summers were going to end in coffins-- and Richie doesn’t want to tempt any fate in wrapping a single finger around a bat. No. Not again...

It’s a hot August day and Richie and Bill are sprawled over the couch, a single fan oscillating between them. Bill’s in a tank top and his goddamn jean shorts that Richie insists he needs to take off-- and not in any  _fun_ sort of way. Richie takes his shirt off the minute he walks in the door and saw no parental figure was home. It isn’t even that hot, Richie just can’t stand the sun’s constant glare. His glasses always catch it and hurt his eyes while his entire body grows exhausted from the steady exposure. Bill is afraid he’s going to bake himself to death and keeps him indoors as much as possible-- his legs resting over Richie’s and keeping him pinned to the couch.

“Hey, Richie?” Georgie asks, his feet padding down the stairs. There’s an uneven  _thump_  following his two steps. Richie cranes his neck to see Georgie trailing over to them with a large tennis ball-- and a bat.

“Hey, buddy. What’s up?” Richie tries to straighten his posture and collect himself. He moves his glasses, hoping to lose focus on the weapon in Georgie’s hand.

“Would you come play with me?” Georgie says. “I want to practice.”

“Baseball?” Richie asks. The word sticks in his throat, like he trying to breathe honey. It’s not sweet. It’s poison.

“Yeah.” He nods, ignoring the furrow changing Richie’s face.

“Georgie is getting really good at p-pitching.” Bill says, holding an arm out to wrap around his brother and pull him close.

“Dad says that they don’t have underhand pitchers.” Georgie argues. Richie rolls his eyes and waves the complaint away. “I can’t do it like real players yet.”

“You’re fine, Georgie. Don’t listen to him.” Richie says. 

“Will you help me?” Georgie asks again, watching him readjust in his seat. “It’s not that hot outside, Richie! Come on. Come play with me!”

Richie doesn’t know how to break the heart of a seven year old very well. “What do you want me to do, Hot Shot? Play some catch?” Richie’s voice sounds foreign. He doesn’t even think he’s speaking anymore.

“Teach me how to hit ‘em too.” Georgie says.

He hoists the too-long bat and it swings beside him. It’s like a pendulum, each motion forward dragging the seconds. Richie becomes hyper aware of every moment he never thought he’d lived to see if he hadn’t suddenly felt the pulse of numbness consume him one year ago in the sewers. When he felt every instinct to run dissolve in a blanket of consuming dread that if Richie didn’t do something  _then_  and  _now_ , he was going to lose Bill forever. He was going to watch him die, neck snapped and eyes forever locked onto his face.

Richie blinks and tries to regurgitate a response, a  _sure_. He thinks he does. Georgie skips away, the bat dragging behind him on his way to the backdoor. Bill moves, legs lifting from him and folding under his own body. There’s a hand on Richie’s chest, as if trying to find his heart. He feels dead.

“Rich? Y-Y-You okay? You look like you’re g-gonna throw up.” Bill says with a half convinced laugh.

“I’m fine.” Richie says and pushes himself off the couch. He grabs his shirt and puts it back on, hoping to dull his thrumming skin. Bill calls after him, trying to get him to tell Georgie to wait  _five more minutes_.

Bill doesn’t like when Richie leaves him when he’s upset. Richie had been making a habit disappearing when his mind fogged and the world drifted from his grasp. In May, he came to standing at the edge of the quarry, staring down at the still water with the moon reflecting back up at him. Richie knew then and now that he wasn’t going to do anything stupid-- anything  _that_  stupid. Standing there was just the most relaxing for Richie. He was able to look down on something and be just as distant and microscopic as he felt. He got to float.

Richie walks out back to see Georgie fumbling with the bat. He can’t hold it up with one arm very well. It’s too heavy for him. Richie walks over and places a hand on the top of his head, rustling his hair. Georgie tries, with endearing extra effort, to hoist the bat up to Richie. He holds it for only a second before it wobbles and dips with imbalance, falling into Richie’s side.

It doesn’t hurt, but Richie cries out and jumps away. The wood is hard on his skin, even in the brief brush against him. He can feel the varnish rubbing against his hands all over again, a blister forming in the mixture of friction and heat. He grasps at nothing. There’s nothing in his hand, nothing to protect himself.

Richie blinks and everything feels dark. His arms feel glued to his sides, but everything feels unable to stop. He knows Georgie is talking to him, he can hear his voice but none of his words. He can’t see Bill. There are no blue eyes to spot him in the darkness, no hand to guide him to the surface, no one to know that Richie’s gone from conscious reality. Richie floats away, body trembling both inside and out. He thinks he’ll fall apart on the grass-- body rattling down to its parts and Georgie pulling on his arm, trying to speak to him. His voice can’t ground him.

_I will feast on your flesh as I feed on your fear. I will feast on your flesh. As I feed on your fear. Feed on your fear. On you._

_Fear._

“R--Richie?” A hand grabs at his wrist. He screams, or at least he thinks he does. The sound just seems to swell in his throat silently. He’s too lost. He can’t come back down. “R-Richie, it’s me. It’s me. I’m here.”

Bill’s voice is light, it’s panicked but it’s light. It isn’t hoarse, not being choked out of him with a tight, white hand. Richie’s vision starts to trickle back, all the colors becoming saturated once more. He can see Bill right in front of him, hands on his face and eyes darting over every feature.

“W-What’s wrong?” Bill asks. Georgie has run into the house, scared and going to get the telephone. It’s just the two of them. Alone, but the backyard feels close to Richie, touching his skin. “Richie. Luh-look at me. I’m right here.”

Richie knows his eyes are focused on Bill. He just can’t see him yet. Not all the way. Not the way he likes too: with adoration and love, softness and intensity, with a look that tells Bill that he’s the only thing that makes sense anymore. But no. He’s just staring at Bill then. Dead eyes and a slack face.

“I can’t.” Richie breathes. “I can’t do it.” Richie isn’t even sure what it is, but at the moment it sure feels like everything is overwhelming. He tries to breath and it feels so full, like his chest is going to burst.

“D-Do what?”

“I can still feel it.” Richie’s arm twitches, his shoulder aching. A sports injury, he has to say to the doctor. He swung a bat too hard, he lies, really wanted a home run. He doesn’t tell anyone of the twitch he experiences at night, wide awake and the shadows of the cloudy night sky too dark. The twitch when he thinks he feels another hand on his shoulder, hand around his neck, harsh pull on his ankle.

“What?”

“I didn’t think I could do it.” Richie says, shaking his head. “I’ve never swung a baseball bat before.”

“Oh, R-Richie.” Bill’s thumbs brush over his cheeks. He pushes his glasses back on his nose and tries to smooth his hair. Richie lets him.

“I saw it sticking out of the pile. It was the only thing I could think to use.” He continues. “I saw you just... giving up. And I knew if you died, I would too. I felt everything inside me go blank. It went dark-- like all I had to do was let go and I could hurt him. I--I thought it was courage, but I was just scared. I was scared of having a living death.”

Richie would’ve had to grip that slick, bloody bat in his hand or hold a fistful of dirt before tossing it over Bill’s empty grave. It was easy then. Die saving Bill, because there was nothing else to live for.

“I’m alive.” Bill says evenly. “You’re alive. We’re  _all_  alive, Richie.”

It doesn’t feel like it, but Richie knows to trust Bill. He blinks twice and tries to find Bill’s face in his daze. He knows his eyes are tired looking and not right, but he can see Bill. Bill’s eyes are bright, but drained. He’s crying-- they both are. Richie barely notices. He opens and closes his hands, expecting something to materialize in his palm. Expecting him to be back in the sewer, the past year an elaborate nightmare as he floated upward, his neck limp and pupil-less eyes a faded amber color.

Instead, Bill grabs his hand and presses a finger into the scar slicing across his palm. It doesn’t hurt anymore. In fact, it doesn’t feel like anything.Nothing does. Bill’s fingers dig against it, trying to find the dip in numbness to find the delicate tendons of his hands.

Richie knows Bill has an identical one on his own hand. His is thicker, raised further off his palm. Richie feels every time Bill touches him. It traces along his back when they sit and watch TV together, it pushes against his palm when they grip each other tight during long walks, it runs along his arm when Bill gently tries to get his fleeting attention-- but it isn’t on Richie  _then_. He can’t feel it.

Richie rolls his wrist and grabs Bill’s hand in his own. His thumb pushes along the scar, feeling the rounded, thick skin. Bill has a scar because he lived-- they all did. They spilled blood on their own terms. The slick feeling and Richie’s hand is recognized to be sweat-- not blood.  _Not blood._

Richie comes back to himself in a heavy exhale. He collapses into Bill, eyes closing and glasses being knocked off his face. Bill catches him and they slowly ease down onto the grass. The sun is warm on Richie’s face. It isn’t dark.

Richie learns that day that he isn’t ready to face a baseball bat yet. He isn’t ready to hold the same weapon he’d felt his childhood die with. He wasn’t sure when he was going to be ready, if he ever would be. Holding a bat would mean Richie had moved on from his trauma, that he wasn’t in the midst of mourning the loss of every trembling touch he had to reject and push away because his skin began to feel faded and washed off. Or that he wasn’t thinking about every day he and Bill spent sitting in his room, silent but sharing the same terrifying thoughts with tears. Playing baseball meant that Richie felt like he could use a bat for fun, that it no longer made him think of the first time he had to learn, right then and there _,_ how to swing it with deadly accuracy.

Richie learned how to play baseball trying to save Bill’s life. He couldn’t teach Georgie anything. It was just fear: heavy and sweet, and worth every bite.

**Author's Note:**

> [The Rebloggable Post!](https://richiethedicktozier.tumblr.com/post/179542929634/feed-on-your-fear)


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